Lloyd George, David

views updated

LLOYD GEORGE, DAVID

LLOYD GEORGE, DAVID (1863–1945), British politician.

David Lloyd George, perhaps best known as Great Britain's prime minister from 1916 to 1922, was already recognized in 1914 as a leading politician and statesman. Born in Manchester, England, in 1863 to poor but respectable Welsh parents and fatherless by the age of two, Lloyd George seemed destined to lead an obscure life. But robust encouragement from family members and dedicated teachers, combined with native intelligence and natural oratorical skills, created in the young Lloyd George an ambition far beyond what his station in life promised.

Articled to a law firm in 1879, Lloyd George qualified as a solicitor in 1884, and a year later he established his own law firm. His legal aspirations, however, soon lagged behind his political ambitions. His cases in law challenged the perquisites enjoyed by both the Church of England and the landed class in Wales. He denounced rank and privilege at temperance meetings and nonconformist gatherings. In addition, he honed his critical skills in a local debating society and writing for the North Wales Express—an experience that taught him how the press could influence public opinion.

In 1890, at the age of twenty-seven, Lloyd George was elected Liberal member of Parliament (MP) at a by-election for Caernarvon Boroughs, a constituency he held for the remainder of his lengthy political career. In his early days in the House of Commons, Lloyd George's radical and inflammatory voice represented an emerging Welsh democratic nationalism, firmly established among farmers as well as the urban middle class. Gradually, however, Lloyd George took tentative steps toward the center of the Liberal Party. He engaged in constructive reform, especially as it related to social welfare and education. He also defended the threat to free trade posed by Joseph Chamberlain's tariff reform scheme. Yet his radical credentials had not been put aside. He courageously criticized the Boer War (1899–1902) as an irresponsible imperial adventure, especially attacking its faulty strategy and exorbitant expense.

Although he antagonized even some members of his own party by his radical views, his talent could not be ignored. When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman won a landslide victory at the general election of January 1906, Lloyd George was brought into the cabinet as president of the Board of Trade. From this relatively minor position, he enhanced his reputation as a reformer and added to his stature by his sensible and even-handed negotiations during industrial disputes. Speaking directly with both masters and men during the railway dispute of 1907, for example, he prevented a potentially crippling strike. He was also quite willing to sponsor pro-business legislation, such as the Patents and Designs Act (1907) and the Companies' Act. Even when unsuccessful, he earned wide respect as a man unafraid to tackle difficult problems. Thus, it was not surprising that Lloyd George should replace Herbert Henry Asquith as chancellor of the Exchequer when Asquith became prime minister in April 1908.

In his early years at the Exchequer, four important issues captured his attention: the passage of the old-age pension scheme in 1908; the socalled People's Budget of 1910; the Parliament

Act of 1911; and the National Insurance Scheme of that same year. Support for a pension plan had been developing for some time, and Lloyd George easily carried the bill through Parliament. The People's Budget was an altogether different affair. New taxes on inherited wealth, unearned incomes, and profits derived from the increasing value of land created a furor among the wealthy. When the conservative House of Lords, in an almost unprecedented move, rejected the budget in November 1909, Lloyd George denounced them in scathing speeches in and out of Parliament. After months of political acrimony and a general election, the Lords finally capitulated in April 1910. The Lords' delaying tactics over the budget was the last straw for the Liberals. Since they had come to power four years earlier, the Liberals had seen their legislative programs time and again vetoed by the upper house. For the Liberals, the issue was no longer merely partisan, but constitutional. To trim the power of the Lords, the Liberals introduced a Parliament bill limiting the Lords to a suspensory veto only. A year of fierce partisan strife, including a second general election, ended with its passage in 1911.

While still engaged in the struggle against the House of Lords, Lloyd George began work on the capstone of his social reform policy. A national insurance system—protecting low-income workers from the misfortunes of both ill health and unemployment—was a logical extension of old-age pensions. In piloting the bill through parliament, Lloyd George not only allayed the fears of vested interests such as friendly societies, private insurance companies, and doctors, he also convinced the insured to participate in a contributory plan. Along with old-age pensions, this bill helped to establish in Britain the cooperative principle by which the state, employers, and the employed all participated in social benefit programs.

Though Lloyd George's radical reputation was enhanced by his reform policies, his moderate tendency was increasingly evident in his approach to foreign policy after the Boer War. During cabinet controversies over naval estimates, for example, Lloyd George (if sometimes under duress) invariably found the money to insure British supremacy of the seas, especially over its nearest competitor, Germany. Particularly notable—and shocking to many of his radical Liberal colleagues—was Lloyd George's surprising and influential speech during the Agadir crisis between Germany and France in July 1911, when he warned Germany that Britain was determined to maintain its dominance in the world.

The year 1911 was the high point of Lloyd George's prewar career. For the next few years, his reputation suffered from a series of political and financial misjudgments. His purchase of shares in the American Marconi Company at a time when its British counterpart was contracting with the British government to build wireless stations throughout the empire created the outward impression of a conflict of interest. His parliamentary initiatives involving land reforms in 1913 and the budget in 1914 were unsuccessful. His attempts to enact some form of women's suffrage failed. Strains in his family and personal life were occasioned by his growing intimacy with Frances Stevenson, the young woman who in 1912 became his secretary and shortly thereafter his mistress.

Criticism began to emerge, though much of it was based on partisan rancor. Some maintained that Lloyd George's vaunted negotiating skills indicated a lack of fixed principles, and that his compromises were merely designed to gain any convenient outcome. His most visceral opponents portrayed him as an ill-bred country solicitor far too enamored of golf, travel, and the good life. There is something to these criticisms; but the reasons lay not in a failure of character. His inclination for changing course, seeking compromise, and occasional grandstanding behavior was more likely rooted in an unexplored psychological need that sometimes intruded upon his public life. In fact, Lloyd George frequently manifested an almost obsessive desire for popular approval, even adulation. Evidence for this exists in his private letters to his family and in unguarded remarks to close friends. With all the doubts about his behavior, however, Lloyd George displayed enormous potential as a political leader in the years before 1914. No one could have foretold that a brutal war and divisive peace would provide the opportunity for Lloyd George to recoup his reputation as a man of vision and energy—at least for a time.

See alsoGreat Britain; Labour Party; Suffragism.